Not with a bang...

...but a whimper. A small news item that popped up last month heralded the end of Motorola's involvement in biotechnology. There was no mention of it on Motorola's website, and you only would have spotted the press release if you looked for it or stumbled across it elsewhere.

The endgame: Motorola's Clinical Micro Sensors was acquired by a U.K. company named Osmetech.

The history:
Motorola's major participation in biotechnology began in 1996 when it dispatched a team of manufacturing experts (now scattered to the four winds) to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to assist in applying manufacturing methodologies to the science of genomic sequencing. Did it work? The answer depends on who you ask.

Motorola decided to formally enter the biotech arena toward the end of 1998 when it established a strategic business unit called Motorola BioChip Systems. Though the initial team was less than 20 people, it would quickly grow.

In the spring of 2000, Motorola acquired Clinical MicroSensors, a Pasadena-based company. Motorola BioChip Systems and Clinical MicroSensors were both placed together under the monniker Motorola Life Sciences.

In 2002, Motorola as a corporation wasn't doing too well. With massive layoffs in other sectors, the folks in Life Sciences were wondering when their turn would come. It came in 2002 when Motorola sold BioChip Systems to Amersham (Amersham was acquired by General Electric in 2004).

With the sale of CMS, Motorola's major involvement in biotech has ended. I wish the CMS employees the best of luck with Osmetech (although the rumor mill now claims that IDEXX may buy Osmetech).

To any former Motorola "BioChipper" that happens to read this: it was a helluva ride, wasn't it?